The Devil's Banshee

by Donna Hosie

  Elinor said it was romantic. Romance made me think of food. It was a good state to be in.

  The only time the special ambience was ruined was when a devil threw himself over the balcony in a vain attempt to die—again. Ah, the foolish newly dead. Rumors occasionally swept among the recent arrivals that if their souls were vanquished in Hell, they would be returned to the HalfWay House once more and could be sorted into Up There. It was a cruel lie, but some devils tried it repeatedly until the healers got fed up with putting the same broken corporeal souls back together and setting the same broken limbs. It was then that the healers started refusing repeat customers. Seeing devils scuttling around like spiders, with arms and legs bent double, was an effective message for the rest of us. Elinor remarked that a few nets under the balconies would have worked just as effectively as a deterrent, but then, Elinor always was what The Devil was not:

  Kind.

  “Alfarin,” she said to me one day. We were eating a picnic after a particularly long shift of mine in Thomason’s. “Do ye think we’ll ever see the real stars again?”

  “Perhaps, one day,” I replied vaguely; I was concentrating on devouring an especially delicious steak and kidney pie—made, I hoped, from the internal organs of a pulverized Saxon. “Death is a continual surprise,” I said once I had swallowed a particularly large bite. “And perhaps, one day we may feel the wind on our skin and the warmth of the sun on the crowns of our heads.”

  “I still cannot believe that man is on the moon and flying in the stars,” said Elinor wistfully. “I know many devils do not like getting news of the living from the recently deceased, but I do.”

  “Flying in the stars is too close to angels for my liking,” I replied. “I am happy in Hell.”

  “What would ye do if ye saw an angel flying?” asked Elinor, taking a delicate bite out of a piece of cheese.

  “It depends on whether they were playing a harp,” I replied. “I cannot abide harp music. They now play it in the toilets on level 666. I cannot do my business when I am thinking of simpering angels.”

  “Ye don’t know if angels simper, Alfarin. They could be brave warriors like ye.”

  Elinor spent the next fifteen minutes slapping my back as I coughed and spluttered at the thought. Strong, courageous, battle-ready angels? The very idea was preposterous.

  16. Face of Evil

  Mitchell and I start to climb the steep steps to the Sixth Circle. I am bent forward like an ape, using my hands to steady my body as we ascend. Mitchell and I have stopped talking as we concentrate on the climb, but his words are running through my head nonetheless.

  What if it is someone immolating? Someone who is always angry?

  Lord Septimus said no one had ever learned how to immolate in the Underworld before, not even a great warrior like him, yet I believe Mitchell’s suspicions are correct. I immolated in the Seventh Circle, and while I was existing in two conscious states and may not have immolated in the true sense, if there was ever a dead soul who could twist the boundaries of death, it would be the fearsome Maid of Orléans. Plus, as we discovered on our recent journey back to the land of the living, her immolation is different from ours. Unlike devils, she does not have any heat buildup within her to allow her to explode into a fireball of rage. Instead, she was an angel, gifted with the strength of movement. But anger is still the trigger, and Jeanne would not have lost that. On the contrary, I think the desperation of her forced confinement would be fuel to the fire . . . or wind, in her case.

  Silence is a virtue. As Team DEVIL and Virgil continue to scale the searing steps that will take us to the Sixth Circle, I replay the events that took place in the reception area, just before Lord Septimus took us through the doors.

  I suspect that what we witnessed there was no ordinary unruly gathering of devils. It was a diversion to allow Jeanne to escape Hell. That was why we saw Owen, Angela and Johnny there, too. They were probably the ones who started the riot, almost certainly on Lord Septimus’s orders.

  Oh, that cunning Roman, with his Machiavellian ways and his ability to keep his shirts crisp and free of sweat stains, even in Hell . . .

  But he should have told me, and I am annoyed that Lord Septimus did not see fit to include me in his plans. I deserve to know why Jeanne is here. I am the leader of this mission to find Beatrice Morrigan, and if I am to guide us through, am I supposed to ensure her safety, or is she answerable to no one? And now another concern weighs upon me. If Jeanne is in these circles with us, then she is going to find the next circle the hardest of all. For inside the Sixth, she may well find her tormentors and accusers—those very men who put her living body to the flame because her faith was different than theirs.

  If she is here, we are going to have to find her. Jeanne is brave, but she is not as learned as we in matters of Hell, or as prepared. And if there is one thing I am discovering on this hateful journey, it is that one cannot get by on bravery alone.

  Lord Septimus should have trusted me with the whole truth.

  “Do not look down,” calls Virgil from the front of our procession. “We are approaching the entrance to the Sixth, but one false step, and you will be lost to the deep.”

  I have no intention of looking down, but a small rockfall is now cascading down the steps. The stone, already worn by time and intense heat, is coming loose as each devil treads upon it. My fingers are being scorched as the foundations start to come away. I am at the end of our line, and we are no longer joined by rope. If one above me should fall, then we all shall topple like trees.

  Mitchell is no longer climbing. I peer around his sticklike form and see that Medusa has also stopped. She is patting Elinor’s legs, but my princess has not been stalled by Virgil. I can see his red cloth continuing to billow in the heat, which is hitching up in strength and intensity, as he continues to climb the last of the steps ahead of us.

  Mitchell turns around and looks down at me. He sways as he unwittingly catches sight of the drop below us.

  “I think Elinor has vertigo. She says she can’t go on,” he says.

  “Elinor does not suffer from vertigo,” I shout back.

  Medusa’s words of encouragement to Elinor are becoming louder and more fretful in tone. I climb a few more steps and am soon almost level with Mitchell. The stairs are not wide enough for the two of us, but my intentions are clear to my friend. He dips down and manages to maneuver himself like a snake between my legs.

  “It’s a sheer drop on either side,” I say. “Do not fall, Mitchell.”

  “You don’t say,” he snaps, with slight hysteria in his tone. “And here I was about to throw myself off.”

  I am now behind Medusa, and I can see that Elinor is bent forward, clawing at the roughly hewn steps with her fingers. The heat is unforgiving. Just climbing those few steps has increased my body core to that of a volcano about to blow. I feel as if I am being cooked . . .

  Oh, no. The burning heat. I was so preoccupied with the thought of Jeanne possibly reliving her death by fire that I forgot Elinor’s own torment before my blade released her from the agony of her final moments on earth.

  But now another sight has caught my eye, and that of Medusa, too, for she is the first to exclaim in horror. Blood. Two small pools of thick, lumpy blood are oozing down from Elinor’s head. It is sizzling as it makes contact with the rock beneath her body.

  “Alfarin!” cries Medusa.

  “Let me pass!” I shout. “Crouch down and slip through my legs, Medusa. I will carry Elinor on my back if I have to. We will get her through this next circle.”

  Suddenly, Elinor stands upright and flings her arms out to the side. She screams a primal shriek that doesn’t sound human. Her head snaps back, and I can actually see the force of her scream vibrating as a black distortion expels from her mouth. Blood is slowly inching its way down her red hair.

  “It’s coming from her eyes!” screams Medusa. “Just like the little boy—the Dreamcatcher. Alfarin, we have to get Elinor out of here.�
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  Medusa drops through my legs, but in her haste, her sneakers skid on loose stone. As Elinor continues to scream, Medusa slides past Mitchell, grappling and flailing desperately as she loses her hold on the steep steps.

  Mitchell slides down after Medusa and stops her descent by grabbing hold of her green T-shirt. It rips, but Mitchell manages to wrap his legs around Medusa before she tumbles farther. They cling to each other, too scared to move for fear of slipping. I have a choice, and a decision to make based upon those choices. Do I pull Mitchell and Medusa to safer ground, or do I try to placate my bleeding Elinor?

  “Go to her!” cries Mitchell. I nod to him, grateful for the affirmation of the only choice I could make.

  I am about to climb up onto the step where Elinor is screaming when she turns to me with her arms still outstretched.

  The face of The Devil stares back at me. His pale skin, so thin it is almost transparent, is covered in blood that is pouring from his black eyes. His goatee is curled into a neat point. Then his open mouth stops screaming and starts to laugh. Soon the sickening high-pitched giggle is shaking and rattling the entire cavern. Rocks dislodge and drop from the roof, shattering like glass as they make contact with the stone floor far below us. I see Virgil, now at the top of the steps, throw himself to the right to escape being crushed by a huge, cone-shaped piece of rock that plummets from the roof. The guide is blind, but The Devil’s voice is unmistakable to those in Hell, even Virgil. The old man is pounding at the ground with clenched fists.

  “I need to see . . . I need to see!” he cries. He then claws at his face, dragging down the loose skin around his white eyes.

  Elinor gasps, and her face becomes her own once more. I know she knows what has happened because her expression is one of pure terror. Her lips are spread so thin in a silent scream they have all but disappeared from her face.

  “He’s gone, Elinor!” I cry, reaching out for her. “You have beaten him back.”

  Elinor’s ruby-red eyes are swimming with tears now instead of blood. Her face and T-shirt are streaked with the remnants of the possession.

  The cave shakes violently one last time. The step Elinor is standing on dissolves into dust. In slow motion, she slips past me and falls into the abyss.

  Sjaután

  Alfarin and Elinor

  How did you die?

  It was the most popular question within our immortal domain. For some of us, it was an icebreaker: a way to instantly bond with another devil. For others, it was a constant reminder that they were dead, and therefore as unwelcome as Second Cousin Odd at family gatherings, Viking social events and . . . well, anything, really.

  For me, it was not a question I asked of any devil, ever, with the exception of one. That is because the knowledge of how someone died had never really concerned me before I became close to Elinor Powell. I was dead. Everyone around me was dead. Did the journey to this destination really matter? I might have felt different if devils asked each other, “How did you live?” Because what better measure of a person was there than the facts of how they spent their lives? I would have been heartened to learn that the devil next to me was a professional ale brewer in life, or a fashioner of tools, or weaponry or longships. Perhaps he was victorious on the battlefields of his life, or perhaps he knew the bitterness of defeat. Perhaps he was an inventor of great things that contributed to the progress of mankind, such as fried chicken served in a bucket.

  But no. Devils were far more interested in how it all ended—and the more dramatic, the better. I had heard of every way to die during my one thousand years of death, but I had learned that the dead can lie just as convincingly as the living.

  Some even wore their demise with pride, especially those who wished to impress devils like the buxom wench, Patricia Lloyd, who started working in the library in 2001. Many a devil would regale her with tales of his bravery in his final moments of living in order to get an extreme close-up of her tattoos and piercings. It was astonishing how many males found themselves gored to death by unicorns or half-eaten by dragons.

  Vikings were proud in life and prouder in death. Our weapons were big, and our tankards even bigger, for we had much to toast in death. And it mattered not if we arrived in Valhalla by axe, spear or bow—the cause of our deaths had no effect on how we existed in the Afterlife.

  But Elinor was not a Viking. She shied away from violence and pain. And I noticed she had a particular nervousness about her when it came to fire. She avoided the torches that lined the hallways. She joined us at our hearth, but never too close.

  I knew she had died in the year 1666. Some of my kin would put two and two together and get seven, but Elinor had given me the gift of being learned. So it was not difficult for me to guess what had happened to her. Still, I sought out information in the library to learn more about her life and times—and, of course, the year of her demise. The year 1666 was a celebrated date in Hell. And for me, Elinor’s unease around fire was an arrow that pointed straight to the month of September.

  I did not need to ask her if she died in the Great Fire of London. I just knew. But the tomes in the library spoke of horrors in that catastrophe that I could never have fathomed.

  Armed with this knowledge, one day I decided to ask her exactly how she died. If I heard the cause confirmed, from her own lips, then I could take steps to ensure that she was never reminded of her death again. My axe; my massive upper-body strength; and my impressive beard, which she was constantly grooming, would keep her safe—or distracted—from anything that might bring back heinous memories.

  We had settled for the evening in Thomason’s Bar. My cousin was trying a new concept called Cocktail Night. I think someone should have explained that the words cock and tail should not have been taken literally. I was most definitely not drinking what was being served up.

  Being underage for drinking was most definitely working in my favor this evening.

  In spite of the unfortunate beverages surrounding us, Elinor was in a good mood. She was relaxed. Her neck did not seem to be paining her as much as usual. It seemed like a good moment to ask the question that everyone else asks.

  “Elinor,” I said, clearing my throat. “May I ask you something?”

  “Ye do not need to ask permission, Alfarin. Ye can ask anything of me, ye know that.”

  “How did you die?” I asked, taking care to keep my deep voice quiet.

  Elinor bit down on her bottom lip. “Ye know how I died.”

  “I know you died in the Great Fire of London,” I said. “But how? Was it flame, smoke, the collapse of your building or some other nefarious incident?”

  “I cannot tell ye now, Alfarin,” she whispered.

  “But I am your closest friend,” I replied. “I want to help ensure you never have to relive it.”

  “Ye are my closest friend, it’s true. So . . . so just know that one day . . . one day, I will tell ye. But not now.”

  Straightaway I knew my mistake in pushing the question. Elinor’s deep-red eyes were darting left and right. Both hands were on her neck. It pained me to see her in such distress. I wanted to tell her that I would have suffered in the fire for her. That I would have inhaled the smoke if it meant keeping her alive longer.

  I wanted to tell her that I loved her and that even though I couldn’t save her in life, I would do anything to protect her in death.

  I spent the rest of the evening in a state of deep penitence for my inquisitive folly. I even sneaked one of Cousin Thomason’s cocktails and slugged it down, just to make Elinor laugh, which she did.

  Then she helped my uncle Magnus perform the Heimlich maneuver when the tail of a rat became lodged in my throat.

  Fire was said to be one of the worst ways to pass over. Many a brave devil would quail in the presence of flame.

  I would not ask Elinor again, not ever. She would tell me when she was ready.

  17. Four of Nine

  “Elinor!”

  The sight of my princess slippi
ng into the vast darkness below me is too much. I do not stop to think. I throw myself down after her. In the rush of hot wind whistling by my ears, I can hear Mitchell and Medusa screaming, too. My clothes start to tear from my body as I plummet into the abyss after Elinor. I can just see her limp body below me, twisting and turning as she falls.

  Then a blinding flash engulfs me. My flight is brought to a quick end, and I am pulled upright. The suddenness of it causes my neck to snap back, and I bite my tongue.

  I can sense a freezing cold hand gripping my right arm. A fragile, hot body is then pressed against mine in the blinding light—the angel has Elinor, too. My princess and I are quickly pulled upward and deposited next to the shaking Virgil.

  “You!” I gasp, turning to my rescuer. “That is not the first time you have saved my magnificent hide, Jeanne.”

  “And I doubt it will be the last time, Viking,” snaps the fearsome outcast from Up There.

  “You saved Elinor, too,” I say. “Maid of Orléans, know that from this day forth, my axe will honor your—”

  “What were you thinking?” snarls Jeanne. “Vous êtes un idiot! Did you think you would catch the peasant and bounce back up to the top? You are in the Circles of Hell! Start thinking and acting like a leader. I have been watching you from afar, and I have not been impressed. You have been as witless as Owen.”

  “Good to see you, Jeanne,” says Mitchell, clambering up the last of the steps with Medusa on his back. “I’m glad to see Hell hasn’t diluted your charm.”